Örebro Studies in Medicine 131 I
ÖREBRO 2016 ÖREBRO STUDIES IN MEDICINE 131 2016CA
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caisa lindström obtained a Bachelor of Science in Social Work degree 1986 and started to work as a social worker in the social services in the commune of Örebro. She got educated in family therapy and in meeting with families a systemic theory was used. Since 2000 she has been working at the Department of Pediatrics, where a large part of her time is devoted to providing psychosocial support to parents of chronically ill children. It became early quite clear for her that parents of children with chronic disease appears to be exposed to prolonged stress with various types of physical and emotional symptoms as a result. A two-day conference on the subject of “Fatigue syndrome, diagnosis and treatment” organized by the Stressforum at Örebro University Hospital, 2002 formed a basis for further development of clinical methodology when counseling parents with stress symptoms, and also started up an interest for research.
Caisa was registered as a doctoral student in 2007 and graduated in a Medicine Licentiate in September 2011 at Örebro University. Questions re-gard parents life situation remained and February 2014 she were registered as a doctoral student in the school of Health and Medical Sciences at Örebro University, Sweden.
This thesis presents two population-based studies aimed to measure the prevalence of burnout in parents of a child with Type 1 diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) and Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) as well as identifies the risk factors associated with parenting a child with T1DM. In a qualitative study the aim was to explore how mothers suffering from burnout describe their mothering of a child with diabetes. At last, the effects of a group intervention for parents of a child with T1DM or IBD aimed at reducing stress-related symptoms were evaluated.
The results from the present thesis highlight parent’s vulnerability, where especially mothers of children with diabetes are at risk of burnout and to a high degree struggling with the disease in everyday life. Furthermore, the study shows that lack of support from the network and lack of self-recovery time can be a risk factor for burnout. Positively, an intervention aimed to learn out skills for coping with stress showed good results in decreased level of burnout symptoms.
Diabetes is a common chronic disease in pediatric care in Sweden whereas IBD in childhood have a lower prevalence. It is hoped that the results from this thesis will contribute to extended knowledge about parent’s situation and gives better tools for both clinicians and parents to handle psychosocial consequences of parenting a child with T1DM or IBD.
issn 1652-4063 isbn 978-91-7529-116-1
